Considered a prodigy in China, Lang Lang arrives to the U.S. certain of what it takes to be the best pianist in the world – dedication, discipline, hours of solitary practice. But when a legendary teacher poses an unexpected question, Lang Lang comes to understand that becoming a true musician will require more than hard work – that it’s not so much what he puts out that matters most, but what he takes in: new music, languages, art, literature, foods, and friends. As Lang Lang’s world expands, his ambitions move away from seeking fame alone to becoming an infinite student infinitely learning, eventually connecting him even more deeply with his own culture – and, ultimately, with himself.

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Each episode of Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with immersive music and gentle mindfulness prompts. Read the transcript for this story: meditativestory.com

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Judith Grisel is an internationally recognized behavioral neuroscientist and professor of psychology known for her research on the role of the brain in drug addiction. She is also a former addict. Years into her sobriety, Judy still labors to escape the painful feelings of loneliness and emptiness that have been with her since childhood. But when a friend presents her with a puzzling gift – an empty bowl – she is finally able to embrace the difficult feelings she’s spent a lifetime evading, and make peace with them.

If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podcast player. It helps other listeners find their way to the show, and we’d be so grateful.

Each episode of Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with immersive music and gentle mindfulness prompts. Read the transcript for this story: meditativestory.com

Sign up for the Meditative Story newsletter: https://meditativestory.com/subscribe

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Otis Moss carries the torch for generations of church and civil rights leaders, including his own father, a regional director in the SCLC, and a friend of Dr. Martin Luther King. But it is his late sister Daphne whose influence most impacts his ministry and social advocacy. A brilliant young woman who struggled with schizophrenia, Daphne introduced a young Otis to what he calls “the continuum” – a spirituality born of poetry, literature and jazz that has woven its way through our history. Drawing as much from the beats of J Dilla as from the speeches of Dr. King; from the politics of Public Enemy as from the poetry of Langston Hughes; from John Coltrane and Miles Davis as from Reinhold Niebuhr and Abraham Joshua Heschel, Pastor Moss shares a timely, deeply personal story about the American jazz narrative — how a disparate and diverse people who are not supposed to make music together do — and do so beautifully.

Music by Ryan Holladay and Jonathan Mouton. Follow Jonathan on Instagram: @entertainer4lyfe

If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podcast player. It helps other listeners find their way to the show, and we’d be so grateful.

Each episode of Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with immersive music and gentle mindfulness prompts. Read the transcript for this story: meditativestory.com

Sign up for the Meditative Story newsletter: https://meditativestory.com/subscribe

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On the Mexican holiday Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, we allow ourselves space for our memories and our grief about those we’ve lost — as well as for joy, and even humor, around the continuity between life and death. While many cultures try to tiptoe around death, the rituals of Día de Muertos ask us to look clearly at it, recognize death’s place in our lives, and honor both its everyday-ness and its mystery.

Each episode of Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with immersive music and gentle mindfulness prompts. Read the transcript for this story: meditativestory.com

Sign up for the Meditative Story newsletter: https://meditativestory.com/subscribe

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As an actor and a new mom, Catherine Reitman felt pulled between two competing identities. To capture her frustration, her sadness, her truth, she wrote it all down. In sharing her darkness, she found a way to turn a light on for someone else.

If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podcast player. It helps other listeners find their way to the show, and we’d be so grateful.

Each episode of Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with immersive music and gentle mindfulness prompts. Read the transcript for this story: meditativestory.com

Sign up for the Meditative Story newsletter: https://meditativestory.com/subscribe

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jackals and leopards in the fields. The sound of a lion’s roar. Majestic African bush elephants outside the front door. This is childhood for Forrest Galante as a kid growing up on a farm in Zimbabwe. He’s adventurous and instinctive and connected to the living earth. But a sudden move to the U.S. puts him in a completely new territory. In discovering this new urban world in front of him, Forrest learns that the key for all of us, to key to survival, is to adapt.

If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podcast player. It helps other listeners find their way to the show, and we’d be so grateful.

Each episode of Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with immersive music and gentle mindfulness prompts. Read the transcript for this story: meditativestory.com

Sign up for the Meditative Story newsletter: https://meditativestory.com/subscribe

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In precisely chosen words, the writer, artist and Zen priest Zenju Earthlyn Manuel tells a story from her girlhood, a road trip from LA to Louisiana in 1957. While five-year-old Zenju sits in the back seat dreaming of cowboys, her parents navigate an altogether different landscape. From them, from the trip, Zenju now believes she’s learned how to find her way in the world, in her skin.

If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podcast player. It helps other listeners find their way to the show, and we’d be so grateful.

Each episode of Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with immersive music and gentle mindfulness prompts. Read the transcript for this story: meditativestory.com

Sign up for the Meditative Story newsletter: https://meditativestory.com/subscribe

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Host of NPR’s Wait, Wait...Don’t Tell Me!, Peter Sagal is wrecked and stuck in the wake of a divorce. Suddenly, he finds himself with two free weeks. In need of a healthy distraction, Peter jumps on his Harley for a long solo trip out west. Though he has a destination in mind, what he finds on those quiet, desolate, curvy roads is a new focus, a new voice. And though his aim was to fill his time, he begins to appreciate the quiet – where he can actually hear himself.

If this episode resonates with you, we’d love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your reflections by rating and reviewing Meditative Story in your podcast player. It helps other listeners find their way to the show, and we’d be so grateful.

Each episode of Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with immersive music and gentle mindfulness prompts. Read the transcript for this story: meditativestory.com

Sign up for the Meditative Story newsletter: https://meditativestory.com/subscribe

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.